This is bloody nuts. NYC are totally abusing the law here. Some people abuse their postion for thier own glorificaiton. Nothing better todo than stick thier nose in other people's lives and use thier job as an excuse.

Surley if there are shady landlords working Airbnb then good neighbourhood watch should point it out to the police rather than forcing a company which just want's to make it easlier and safer for people to find a casual let.

For every startup created in New York, there are two government agencies just waiting to stomp it into submission. Really, anyone running a startup out of the US should expect the same, unless they hop into bed with the NSA right off the bat as Facebook did.

Surley if there are shady landlords working Airbnb then good neighbourhood watch should point it out to the police.

I'm fairly sure that's exactly what happened. From the Attorney General's perspective, they've been receiving a large number of complaints from people that their landlords are using this website to effectively turn their apartment buildings into hotel rooms.

Contrary to popular belief, a subpoena isn't something inherently bad. It's a request for information in the course of an investigation. From what I've read in the article, the Attorney General's office has made it clear that they are trying to gather information to go after these specific landlords and make it harder to circumvent the law. In all fairness, I think they're actually representing the public interest on this one.

I can see this legal trouble spilling into other cities unless AirBNB puts some caps on things like stay-length and availability schedule. It really is about commercializing your space...and the problem with that, is if things are getting too commercial, the gov't wants a commercial-style cut of it.

The source also confirmed the real target is landlords doing long-term illegal rentals. Those become especially problematic when there's an obnoxious tenant.

“A drunk European for one week is one thing,” the source said. “If you have to live with it 40 weeks a year, that’s a big difference.”

What a weird comment; what the hell is that about? NYC has a law against obnoxious tenants? Europeans are obnoxious? Europeans are okay, but not for 40 weeks a year?

It was saying that they are looking at people doing illegal long term rentals because a long term annoyance is much more difficult to put up with than a short term annoyance. Since they aren't the actual renters it becomes more cumbersome to "fix" the problem. The use of "European" was just as an example of someone who might use the service, obviously.

“A drunk European for one week is one thing,” the source said. “If you have to live with it 40 weeks a year, that’s a big difference.”

What a weird comment; what the hell is that about? NYC has a law against obnoxious tenants? Europeans are obnoxious? Europeans are okay, but not for 40 weeks a year?

I think the point they were trying to make was that you can complain about an obnoxious tenant and get them potentially evicted. However, that's not going to do you any good if that person is going to be gone in a few days anyway, only to be replaced with someone who has equally nothing to lose. I'm sure the sentiment is more directed towards belligerent tourists in general as opposed to Europeans specifically.

I think the European tourists are used as the example because there is no legal recourse against them. If they light a fire in your building and leave on a plane. I'm pretty sure nobody's going to take the effort to extradite them unless someone gets killed as a result.

NYC Law's against obnoxious tenants are near zero to begin with.

For example. You have a very bad tenant that's rent stabilized. You're screwed because by law the landlord can't do much to get rid of them. But in a non-stabilized apartment the only recourse is to get the management on your side and they'll jack up the rent so they can't afford to live there.

Aside from it all its mostly due to taxes. Do the math. Rent a place out for 40 weeks at $1000 per week. That's $40K Cash. None of these people are paying taxes on this. Or else they'd be known.

Compared to $200 per day for a hotel that's $1400 + about 15% in taxes or about $64K (Probably more)

It seems like rather than a subpoena to start, a few anonymized specific requests would be helpful: what's the list of people who have done more than 3 in the past 6 months? What was the total percentage of time the space was rented out over that time? How much was made? First- figure out how big of an issue it actually is using anonymous data, and then craft the inquiry to specifically target the people you want to crack down on (eg people who are renting their apartment out for more than 20 days a month to more than two parties for 3 consecutive months at a cost that is far higher than the average rent in the boro). I'm sure AirBNB has that kind of info for their advertisers.

And given the difficulty with finding good apartments, to have even .1% pulled off the market will have a noticeable effect on apartments across the city (there is some thing like a 1.28% vacancy rate in NYC) and a lot of that pressure is getting put on those who have a hard enough time finding suitable housing (less apartments available pushes the rent up across the board, even in apartments that aren't AirBNB-worthy).

AirBnB is a commercial enterprise enticing users to break NYC law. I don't see why the subpoena is so noxious or has anything whatsoever to do with 'the feds' or the NSA.

The whole "disruptive technology" thing seems to be more of a mask for Randian bullshit than "empowering" people. Young and very naive entrepreneurs who are way too clueless to imagine a bad outcome.

My understanding is that AirBNB was operational before NYC changed the laws. So they were on the right side of the line originally, but someone decided to move the line. That's not quite the same thing.

I've been visiting NY for a long time. My first visits were in apts. that people advertised as vacation rentals. This is common in many cities around the world.

But apparently, the hotels didn't like competing with apts. that offered more space for lower price so they got the city to institute this law, which again is unusual.

Not coincidentally, hotel rates in NY have continued to go up every year. You can't get a decent hotel room for less than $200-225 (which is increasing every year) and of course, there are room taxes which are like 15-20%.

Now that the hotel rates are so high, there's probably temptation for many Manhattanites to rent their pats. for $200 a night or more.

Why don't they just ask for the people they want to get. People who have rented their place for more than 100 days per year or users who have more than 5 places listed.

Bingo, that would significantly decrease the breadth of the subpoena down to something that might actually fulfill the reasonableness test. The fact that they won't do so even after getting pushback means they have something much less innocent planned for the data obtained.

If you have an actual drunk/abusive/violent tenant, it's essentially impossible to kick them out. None of those reasons are viable in court to kick someone out. So what's better, the occasional misbehaved AirBNB tenant, who would get bad reviews and then doesn't get rented to again by other hosts, or 52 weeks a year, 24/7 drunken abusive guy blasting reggaeton at maximum volume and hitting his kids (this actually happens super often) that costs thousands in court to remove?

Also, since you can sublet a room as long as someone is home, then it's possible to rent out a room on airbnb for 52 weeks a year and stay within the confines of the law (which was partly written by a friend of mine who works for the hotel labor union) because you're still home. In the end, it's protectionism. The hotel industry charges tourists more than 200/night for a box in times square, and they don't want the competition. They come up with trumped up rationale that don't apply to permanent residents for some reason.

I actually phone-banked for Schneiderman to get him elected because he campaigned to get rid of one really shady local politician (who has now been chased out of office because of findings that he had been sexually harassing minors). Scheiderman left him alone and now goes after mobile phone companies and Airbnb.

I've been visiting NY for a long time. My first visits were in apts. that people advertised as vacation rentals. This is common in many cities around the world.

But apparently, the hotels didn't like competing with apts. that offered more space for lower price so they got the city to institute this law, which again is unusual.

Very interesting. I can't say I'm surprised that it's rent-seeking, politically connected businesses driving this. The same reason the NY AG's office was equally uninterested in pursuing the financial fraud that just sort of ruined the economy a little bit.

Last time I checked (although IANAL,) police had to investigate an individual crime, or do a blanket sweep of public sources. (i.e. "Hey, this guy was murdered, let's see where the evidence leads us" or "Set up a roadblock checking each driver for drunk driving.")

Again, IANAL, but I thought it was not permissible to do blanket subpoenas FISHING for crimes. For example, you can't go ask a landlord for access to every apartment in a building saying "I think someone in here might possess illegal drugs."

Last time I checked (although IANAL,) police had to investigate an individual crime, or do a blanket sweep of public sources. (i.e. "Hey, this guy was murdered, let's see where the evidence leads us" or "Set up a roadblock checking each driver for drunk driving.")

Again, IANAL, but I thought it was not permissible to do blanket subpoenas FISHING for crimes. For example, you can't go ask a landlord for access to every apartment in a building saying "I think someone in here might possess illegal drugs."

The principle is called Probable Cause, but using a subpoena gets around the requirement because a) This is a civil and not a criminal matter, b) they are requesting data from a third party rather than from the property owners themselves, which gives an end-run around the Constitutional limitations on government searches, c) the bar is lower for getting a subpoena vs. a search warrant.

But yes, the bottom line is the government has as much contempt for the law as anyone, and guys like Schneiderman hate individual liberty.

As a person that lives in NYC I've seen what happens first hand. Most people would think that it's the landlord complaining about the short term rentals but it's not. The people complaining are to the landlords are the folks like me that live in the apartment building.

Imagine that you rent in a building and have a renter in an upstairs apartment. That renter uses BNB to rent their apartment to anonymous short term renters. The short term renter is given an access card to your building. Most times the real renter of the apartment is away while the short term renter is using their apartment. Does anyone really know who this short term renter is? Since these short term renters are staying at a "hotel", they tend to trash the building and are gone the next day.

Would you want transient people constantly staying in your apartment building with complete access and no way to track them down?

It seems like rather than a subpoena to start, a few anonymized specific requests would be helpful: what's the list of people who have done more than 3 in the past 6 months? What was the total percentage of time the space was rented out over that time? How much was made? First- figure out how big of an issue it actually is using anonymous data, and then craft the inquiry to specifically target the people you want to crack down on (eg people who are renting their apartment out for more than 20 days a month to more than two parties for 3 consecutive months at a cost that is far higher than the average rent in the boro). I'm sure AirBNB has that kind of info for their advertisers.

And given the difficulty with finding good apartments, to have even .1% pulled off the market will have a noticeable effect on apartments across the city (there is some thing like a 1.28% vacancy rate in NYC) and a lot of that pressure is getting put on those who have a hard enough time finding suitable housing (less apartments available pushes the rent up across the board, even in apartments that aren't AirBNB-worthy).

Well for one, there is no way to check a narrowed data set or know if there was actual compliance with the subpoena. It would be fairly easy to do with the full data.

As for your complaint about removing apartments. That is the problem right now. Apartments that could end up being rented out have been converted into hotel rooms. This has reduced apartment availability in NYC. So you should be in support of the AG's action to catch those breaking the law as it ultimately makes more apartments available to renters.

The source also confirmed the real target is landlords doing long-term illegal rentals. Those become especially problematic when there's an obnoxious tenant.

“A drunk European for one week is one thing,” the source said. “If you have to live with it 40 weeks a year, that’s a big difference.”

What a weird comment; what the hell is that about? NYC has a law against obnoxious tenants? Europeans are obnoxious? Europeans are okay, but not for 40 weeks a year?

I think it's fairly obvious that this comment is implying that some Airbnb landlords are renting out apartments as weekly holiday lets to people who come over to New York for a week of wild partying. I guess that sort of thing is especially popular with young Europeans intent on the holiday of a lifetime. In fact, it actually sounds pretty great, definitely better than a Greek or Spanish island, or the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea (all notorious party resorts).

Some of the pro-AirBnB comments here stretch credulity. I'm starting to think they are hiring shills.

NYC has some of the strictest rental laws in the country. Most have been put in place because of the incredibly low vacancy market and the rest because of spurious practices by shady landlords. For instance, rent regulation was put into place because returning WWII veterans were being kicked out by landlords and their apartment re-rented to the next shipload of veterans for higher prices.

There are multiple ways AirBnB breaks laws/rules:

It is against the law to rent an apartment for less than 30 days in NYC to a non-relative. That is considered running a hotel, which requires hotel zoning (costs millions) and requires the payment of hotel tax. Also most neighborhoods would not allow a hotel because of the noise, traffic. This applies to the owners of the apartments and renters. In popular neighborhoods (like SoHo) with many rent regulated apartments, landlords will purposefully fill all of their non-rent regulated apartments in a building to drive the rent-regulated tenants out, so they can vacate and decontrol the apartments. Sometimes the monthly market and rent regulated rent difference is in the thousands of dollars.

It is against most leases to sublet an apartment. This covers renters "letting people stay" while they recoup their rental costs. Breaking your sublet clause is grounds for eviction in a non rent-regulated apartment. In rent-regulated apartments, subletting is allowed, but profiting off of a sublet is prohibited. it is against the law to charge more than 10% of your rent stabilized rent. Anyone caught violating that rule has to pay triple damages.

Finally, people routinely maximum occupancy fire codes. This can be a serious issue, especially as the entire building is affected if a fire occurs. Homeowner and fire insurance are extremely expensive in NYC.

Beyond the laws, there are two things about AirBnB that trouble me. As a real estate broker in the city, I know how rental prices are driven by lack of supply, especially in desirable neighborhoods. Landlords and renters using the service have driven down vacancy rates even further, causing rent increases for other people in the neighborhoods. A landlord can charge $500 a night for a two bedroom apartment in SoHo, which comes out to $15,000 a month. A normal tenant willing to pay the market monthly rent of $4500 cannot compete with AirBnB. Renters indirectly cause the same effect as they can sustain higher rental prices in the neighborhoods. It breaks the rhythm of supply and demand.

The other element of AirBnB that worries me is the safety concept. I live in a small building in Brooklyn. There are five children on the other floors and it would concern me that complete strangers could have access into the building without any knowledge or control by the management company. I don't mean to be all think of the children, but doesn't it worry you?

I am not saying Air-BnB is bad in any way. I love using it in smaller less dense places and don't enjoy hotels all that much. But NYC presents special challenges because of its density and expense. I don't know what the solution is... but it has nothing to do with NSA or socialism.

Some of the pro-AirBnB comments here stretch credulity. I'm starting to think they are hiring shills.

More likely it's the fact the majority don't live in areas where a large # of BnBs is an issue. Here's why I'm very pro-BnB:

As far as I can tell, there's very little difference in quality in hotel rooms from the price range of $200-700 per night. The upper range might have a sink that's not located in the bathroom, plus a doorway that leads to unnecessary space. Until you hit $1k per night, I really couldn't care whether I stay in a Holiday Inn Express or a Four Seasons. I always go with a Bed & Breakfast whenever I get the chance as there's usually a large selection in terms of quality & generally better bang for buck (plus a living room that you'd actually want to lounge in). You look at some of the smaller "resorts" in SE Asia and they're basically just 5 or 6 nice BnB rentals. When I visited Puerto Vallarta, the large resort had nice facilities but four of us ended up forfeiting the $$ for a week to stay at a rental house instead (which was infinitely better).

In terms of anti-BnB sentiment, it sounds like they're based around noise & traffic. The former I can understand, but the latter doesn't make sense if the property owners would otherwise be staying there & probably commuting more during peak hours with their own cars (although this might differ specifically in NYC, where I rent a car but probably wouldn't own if I lived there).

You can do short-term vacation apt. rentals in London and Paris, which also have very high hotel prices.

Why should NY be different? Why should hotels there be free to charge whatever prices they want without any competition?

Actually Paris is also trying to regulate this. There are over 20000 touristic apartments according to this article.

Maybe the difference is that airbnb is much bigger than the small agencies which manage vacation rentals, even bigger than vacation rental sites like stay.com. It didn't help that the airbnb CEO wrote an op ed urging NYC to change their laws on this.

I've been visiting NY for a long time. My first visits were in apts. that people advertised as vacation rentals. This is common in many cities around the world.

But apparently, the hotels didn't like competing with apts. that offered more space for lower price so they got the city to institute this law, which again is unusual.

Not coincidentally, hotel rates in NY have continued to go up every year. You can't get a decent hotel room for less than $200-225 (which is increasing every year) and of course, there are room taxes which are like 15-20%.

Now that the hotel rates are so high, there's probably temptation for many Manhattanites to rent their pats. for $200 a night or more.

Most cities have occupancy taxes or something similar. (I think Las Vegas calls it a convention center tax.) You start doing enough under the table deals like airbnb, and the city misses out on the tax revenue. The funny thing is the tax was incident on the visitors, but with under the table deals, the revenue, if replaced, would come from the resident taxpayers.

Personally, if I had a Manhattan apartment, I don't think $200 is the kind of money that would get me excited.

AirBnB is a commercial enterprise enticing users to break NYC law. I don't see why the subpoena is so noxious or has anything whatsoever to do with 'the feds' or the NSA.

But they are subpoenaing the website in order to get data on *all* landlords, whether or not they have any reason to beleive those landlords are up to something. That's the pattern we have seen with the NSA, except this time the excuse isn't even terrorism.

It would be a pity to esoteric stuff like consitutionalism to get in the way of vitally practical matters like preventing rentals of less than 30 days.

The whole "disruptive technology" thing seems to be more of a mask for Randian bullshit than "empowering" people. Young and very naive entrepreneurs who are way too clueless to imagine a bad outcome.

Ok, I can only guess about what you mean, so the next comment might be unfair. Do you say these guys as naive just because the city government can crush them arbitrarily? And then you support the city because, what, you just think they ought to have arbitrary power? Because you think they are strong and want to cheerlead?

God, everyone acts like any subpoena for anything is some terrible government intrusion into public life. A subpoena related to a public case against a business operating in NYC, possibly in violation of NYC law, is perfectly reasonable. Its not some warrantless and secret interception of American communications. It is the way our legal system is supposed to work.

You can do short-term vacation apt. rentals in London and Paris, which also have very high hotel prices.

Why should NY be different? Why should hotels there be free to charge whatever prices they want without any competition?

Actually Paris is also trying to regulate this. There are over 20000 touristic apartments according to this article.

Maybe the difference is that airbnb is much bigger than the small agencies which manage vacation rentals, even bigger than vacation rental sites like stay.com. It didn't help that the airbnb CEO wrote an op ed urging NYC to change their laws on this.

hmm. the biggest agency in Paris is . . . Airbnb !

But the problem is a bit different there. Avaibility of rentals is almost as low as New-York but only because landlords classify their buildings as commercial use only for tax reasons but also because evicting a renter is long and difficult even if not paying, unlike a business. So the paradox is that prices are high while building vacancies are numerous.

Those short term rentals, by removing flats from an already constrained marked have driven prices at an unnaffordable level, leading to even more people leaving Paris to live in the nearby towns.